Kelsey Reinhardt, president of CatholicVote, explained why the organization has joined more than 40 others in the country to encourage President Donald Trump to resist calls to reclassify marijuana.
“Today’s cannabis is a high-potency, brain-altering substance linked to anxiety, psychosis, and addiction,” Reinhard said Aug. 25. “Studies show it can trigger lifelong mental health disorders, especially in young people, yet its use is rising fast.”
“In states like Colorado where marijuana was legalized and where I live, the social dysfunction has left the streets unsafe: homelessness is rampant, and crime and traffic accidents involving drug users have spiked and ‘zombified’ persons loiter in parks,” Reinhardt continued.
“Weed,” or recreational cannabis, “was legalized in Colorado in 2012 with the passage of Amendment 64,” she explained. “Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize recreational use following this vote.”
According to a 2021 report from the National Center of Biotechnology Information, since recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado, traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for marijuana more than doubled from 55 in 2013 to 131 people killed in 2020.
Marijuana use among children ages 12 to 18 increased 26% and is 61% higher than the national average, currently ranked third in the nation. Adult marijuana use (ages 18 and older) increased 20% and is 62% higher than the national average, also ranking third in the nation.
According to the same report, college-age marijuana use (ages 18 to 25) is 53% higher than the national average.
“Make no mistake, drug use erodes what makes us human: our ability to reason.” Reinhardt said. “And the states that have approved marijuana see every day the diminished dignity of those human persons who abuse it in real time.”
“Aside from the health dangers, there is an urgent spiritual side. Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, who has watched Colorado’s consequences unfold, had this to say: ‘Anything that diminishes man’s use of reason and will assails his dignity as a human person and is therefore harmful.’”
“God granted us dignity beyond every other creature,” Reinhardt added. “We are made in His image and likeness in that we have reason and rational thought. Altering our ability to reason removes us from access to the truth – most importantly, the ultimate truth of God Himself.”
“People who think drugs bring them closer to God couldn’t be more mistaken,” she concluded.